A tumbler into mad-cap cup lunacy

The fanciest cup I ever owned as a single man was made by Tupperware. It was really sturdy plastic. It kept drinks cold for as long as needed. I had a couple of glass juice glasses, too.

My tween daughters — not quite teens yet, but definitely not little girls anymore — don’t think a plastic cup is quite good enough. Now they’re in search of drinkware that costs more than my sneakers.

It all started with a couple of athletic water bottles they got at a summer camp. Once they realized there was more to life than cheap plastic, they were hooked.

Before long, they owned some much nicer squeeze bottles that cost way too much because a popular athletic shoe provider put its logo on the side. They seemed happy with them for a while.

Meanwhile, I’m still drinking out of a lot of big plastic glasses we bought at sporting events we attended. I frequently sip from drinkware with the pictures of quarterbacks and home-run hitters on the side from teams as far as three states away.

Then the YETI craze started. Apparently, people started paying $30 for a tumbler with a top on it. Now you see people walk around with them into meetings everywhere. That stylistic choice found its way into the single-digit grades.

I resisted this. When birthday season hit in August, though, their grandmother didn’t. Now both of them have a YETI with an initial on it.

Meanwhile, when I’m grabbing a big drink, most of mine are served in a big glass I picked up at a bar once upon a time. Legally, of course (as far as you know).

So now they’ve started talking about their newest trend, and I’m learning all sorts of new terminology in the process.

First they joked about becoming “Visco girls.” According to UrbanDictionary.com, that’s a girl who has lots of scrunchies, an Apple Watch, wears Birkenstocks and edits her photos on the Vsco editing app.

This mythical status of overspending apparently includes having the Hydro Flask, a $50 container that advertises it can keep drinks cold for 24 hours and hot for six hours. We told them if they really wanted it, they’d have to save their own money to get it.

The closest I came to something like that was using a Thermos to bring soup to school for lunch sometimes as a kid … until some of my classmates made fun of me for bringing soup to school. Then I started bringing sandwiches in a brown paper bag to school.

That’s when I remember that peer pressure’s always been around. As much as I’d like my kids to not feel pressured into unnecessary consumerism, my decisions as a kid were made by others, too. I just wish their peers had cheaper tastes.

David Trinko is managing editor of The Lima News. Reach him at 567-242-0467, by email at dtrinko@limanews.com or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.